


Always look on the Dark Side of life

by Gan_HOPE326



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Crack, F/M, Gen, Parody
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:35:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26252005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gan_HOPE326/pseuds/Gan_HOPE326
Summary: Chancellor Palpatine has revealed himself as the Dark Lord of the Sith; Mace Windu is dead; and Anakin Skywalker has just begrudgingly committed to the Dark Side of the Force. Well, it can't be possibly THAT bad a mistake? Surely there must be an upside to this whole Sith business? After all, no matter how bad things get - you should always look on the Dark Side of life...NOW ALSO AN AUDIOFIC! Check out Mr. Snark's reading at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MTxg0GVXAU
Relationships: Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 6
Kudos: 16
Collections: Star Wars





	1. A new despair

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: the following story contains various amounts of potentially objectionable content. This includes sex innuendo, straight up sex, dark comedy, some violence, Star Wars prequel memes, space racism, a LOT of very creative swearing, and at least one truly horrendous pun. If you are willing to face all of that, then forge ahead, ye brave soul. You've been warned. And really, the title being a Monty Python reference should have been a dead giveaway anyway.
> 
> This story is more or less pure crack. Pretty much no one is in character and the only divergence point from canon is "everyone basically becomes a crazy version of themselves right at the moment when Anakin turns to the Dark Side". The story is complete and I originally wrote it up as a one shot, but it came out long enough that I split it in three smaller chapters. I'll upload them close to each other during the coming week. Have fun!

**Episode 3.1 - A new despair**

"Rise, Lord Vader."

Anakin tentatively lifted his head. Holy bantha poop, was Palpatine _ugly_. He did not know what was that lightning thing that had bounced back all over his face, but if it could do that to a man, well, maybe Mace Windu had been the lucky one there. This was of course a legitimate opinion, and not a desperate rationalisation for the fact that he had just helped throw a high ranking Jedi Master off a skyscraper.

"Is there a problem, Lord Vader?" inquired the old Chancellor.

"Nothing, my master." muttered the young man. "I was wondering if you'd like to take a look in a mirror."

"Why would I want to? Is there something wrong with my stately, yet handsome face?"

Oh Force, he hadn't realised yet. Anakin saw more and more details every second, he wanted to look away but couldn't. He kept trying to think about just _anything_ else, but he was both fascinated and disgusted. There was a morbid attraction that pushed him to look so he could come up with better similes for what it was like. Rotting bark of mouldtree. Bubbling fermented tauntaun milk. Dewback guts, ripped out of the animal's belly and left out to swell with their own gases in the scorching desert sun.

Great, now he had _that_ image stuck in his head.

"I think I feel a bit queasy." The young man tried to suppress his retching. "If I could only use the bathroom..."

His master towered over him and threw him a judgemental stare. "Pah! Nonsense. I have just the thing for you, Lord Vader. It will make you feel all better."

"Is it Tatooine bread?" asked Anakin, hopeful. "When I was a kid, my mom would always give me that to make me feel better."

Palpatine frowned. "It is _not_ Tatooine bread. Which you may be the only person in this Force-damned Galaxy to like. The dough is made with equal parts flour and sand!"

"My master, flour is expensive, and the sand gives it its typical crunchiness that..."

"Enough! You are a Sith now - you hunger not for bread any more, but power!"

"As you say, my master." Anakin kneeled.

Did gungan dung look like that? He was almost positive gungan dung looked sort of like that. 

"The thing that will make you feel better, Lord Vader, is _absolute dominance!_ You will now learn of my master plan, which will allow us to earn power over the entire Galaxy in one fell swoop-"

He started ranting, and Anakin's mind drifted. How was he going to get out of this situation? He had been an instrument in killing Mace Windu. He had _helped the Chancellor kill motherfucking Mace Windu_. That sure was a thing that had happened. Maybe Mace was still alive, and he would climb back up from that window any moment now, and this would turn out to be all a very unfortunate misunderstanding. Somehow, however, Anakin doubted that. The office was really really high, even for someone as strong in the Force as master Windu. Now, the thing was also, he didn't want to kill the old geezer either. He'd said that he'd help him save Padmé's life, and Anakin wanted very much to do that. Why, oh, why couldn't master Windu simply settle for capturing this old fart alive, at least keeping him so long enough to torture the secret of eternal life out of him? Anakin didn't remember if there was something about torture in the Jedi Code. Probably mentioned that it was bad or something, but then again, so should have been summary executions without judge or jury for the simple crime of belonging to a different sect of the same religion. That said, for all his sweet talking, Anakin was much less inclined to trust this guy now that he had seen him fire lightning that could turn people's faces into boiling cauldrons of Hutt sperm. Why had he not stopped firing it when the lightning had started bouncing off master Windu's lightsaber, again? What kind of fanatical, masochistic idiot keeps hitting himself until he's disfigured?

I don't want to end up disfigured, thought Anakin desperately. What would Padmé think _then_? Therefore, for the moment, kneeling down and going along with what this guy said was probably the wisest choice.

"...and that is how we will crush all resistance and assert our power on the domain formerly known as the Republic. Any questions? Is it all clear?"

The young Jedi, now budding Sith, blinked. "No, my master. I mean, yes, my master. I mean, no to the first, and yes to the second, my master."

"Perfect." Palpatine smiled smugly. "Then you will have no problem answering a little quiz."

"None whatsoever, my master." Anakin swallowed and started sweating. He had been a fool. There was no defeating the cunning of the Dark Lord of the Sith.

"What is your role in my plan, Lord Vader?"

Anakin stopped for a moment. He was sure he could find the answer logically, if only he thought about it. He was a powerful Jedi, perhaps the most powerful living Jedi after Yoda and Windu - scratch that, after Yoda. So what could his new master want of him?

"You want me to take down the entire loyalist faction in the Republican Army. Alone." he said, confidently.

"What in the name of the Dark Side are you blabbing about? There is no loyalist faction in the Republican Army. They're _clones_ , for the Force's sake," said Palpatine. " _As I said_ , you are to go to the Jedi Temple and murder all children on site."

Anakin did a double take.

"You want me," he said, slowly, "to murder a bunch of children?"

"Yes."

"You mean, I imagine, children who are about to become adults? Like teenagers?"

"No, I mean children. Like, 10 years old or less."

"Children with special powers? Unusually high midichlorian counts? Born to fulfil age old prophecies?"

"I seriously doubt there's any of those." The Sith, annoyed, scratched his ear with one of his long fingernails. "Just the regular kind of Jedi spawn. Got some Force training, can barely wave a lightsaber around well enough to hit a piñata at a birthday party. Should be as easy as when your mom made you cut the grass on the lawn."

"I was born on a desert planet. We had no lawns."

"You know what I mean, Lord Vader."

The apprentice drew a heavy breath. Fuck. It was like for every second that passed, he was digging himself into a deeper pit, except now someone had thrown a rancor in it.

"Uh. So, okay." he said. "In the grand plan to conquer the Galaxy, I'm to kill children." 

"I believe it to be a task suited to your abilities. Consider it a first test of your... commitment." Palpatine squinted and leaned in, threateningly. "Is there a problem, Lord Vader?"

"None whatsoever, sir. I mean, master." Anakin said, or rather, sort of stuttered. The Sith Lord scoffed.

"I hope you have no regrets about your decisions tonight, Lord Vader. For either way, they are irreversible. Remember: you need me. Your beloved wife needs my help. You do not want to lose her, do you?"

"No, master."

"I can see your every secret, Lord Vader. You can not hide anything from me." He circled menacingly around Anakin. "I see your doubts. I see your fear. I see your love for your wife, still powerful, pushing you forward."

Typical parlour trick, noticed Anakin. Just list a series of very obvious things and pretend to be a diviner. He would not let this old monster put fear into him with these basic tactics.

"I see that one time you lost your virginity, at fifteen, here on Coruscant, with a prostitute, after you sneaked out of the Jedi Temple while Obi-Wan was reporting to the Council."

"WHAT? HOW?!" screamed Anakin, jumping back.

Palpatine smiled. "Such is the power of the Dark Side."

Anakin's feeling that he may have made a terrible mistake grew exponentially.

"Now your feeling that you may have made a terrible mistake is growing exponentially," said Palpatine, bemused. "Let me tell you something, then. That little piece of information earlier - how do you think Padmé would feel about it?"

This couldn't be real life. This was a nightmare. He was being blackmailed by someone with the face like a pot of mouldy wookie root soup, who could _read his mind_. "You wouldn't dare!"

"Me? I'm your friend, Anakin." the Sith's smile widened, as inviting and amicable as that of the sarlacc himself. "But rumours travel quickly. And there are more ways than death to lose a woman..."

Anakin gritted his teeth, clenched his lightsaber. "I'll get to work."

"Good boy." said Palpatine, satisfied. "Now go, quick! Those children won't murder themselves."

The other obliged - he nodded, and scurried away, finally averting his eyes from Palpatine after he had insistently stared at him during their entire conversation.

The Sith Lord slowly walked towards the window of his office - the one that had not been broken by throwing down almost 100 kg of well-trained Jedi Master through it, at least. The boy was obviously a fool, but he was powerful, and would come useful, eventually. Perhaps a bit too powerful? Still, he was now in his grasp, his to manipulate as he pleased, and the plan was in full motion. Years, decades of plotting were coming to a head. Palpatine looked satisfied at the lights of the city under him, all the bustling life of the capital planet of the Republic that was soon to be his to command. He let his eyes drift.

With darkness behind it, at the right angle, the glass reflected perfectly the image of his face back to him.

"Well, fuck." he said.

* * *

The Clone Trooper that stood guard in front of the Jedi Temple was a Commander. Commanders had some degree of creativity and initiative compared to basic Troopers, which meant you could have some sort of conversation with them about topics other than killing people. These usually were how to prepare to killing people, and how to celebrate having successfully killed people.

Anakin walked towards him, hood of his Jedi robes raised, trying to look as threatening and Dark-ish as possible. No telling how many of these mooks would report directly to the old fart. Besides, this part of being a Sith seemed one of the few real perks to him. He'd earned the right to indulge himself a bit.

"Entry is forbidden," the Commander announced, extending an arm and using the other to gesture threateningly with his weapon. "Only authorised personnel allowed."

"I _am_ authorised personnel, you idiot," said Anakin in the lowest, raspiest voice he could manage. "I am here on a special mission on behalf of Chancellor Palpatine."

"Oh." the clone pulled back, with sudden reverence. "The Emperor?"

Emperor? Damn, that guy was even _more_ of a megalomaniac than Anakin first thought. How exactly did he not realise that earlier?

"Yes, the Emperor." he confirmed. "I came to carry out some child murdering duties."

"Ah, yeah, the children," the clone nodded, satisfied. "Damn pests. We can't enter the complex because of them. They seem to have booby-trapped the halls. Lost three brave soldiers to those demons."

Anakin put a hand on the officer's shoulder. "Sorry to hear it, Commander. I am sure they were good men."

"They were. Some people you just can't replace," said the Commander, shaking his head. "At least not until we get the new batch from Kamino."

Anakin walked in carefully. He had seen the children train with Yoda, and as Palpatine had said, they didn't seem like anything special. Of course, they were nevertheless Jedis in training, so clones would still have a bit of trouble. But whatever booby trap they could have set wouldn't be very useful against a _real_ enemy, one who had mastered the ways of the Force. What would they do, leave toy speeders on the floor to make him slip?

The thermal detonator's explosion slammed him against the opposing side of the hall. He screamed in pain some very unflattering things about the Force, things he instinctively feared master Yoda would hear and punish him for, never mind that he had also switched to the Dark Side and all that. Where on bloody Coruscant did children manage to get their hands on military grade explosives?

The answer lie at his feet, decapitated. The looted corpses of the three killed clones. And of course the Temple had an armoury too, if they had had free rein and a way to break into it...

Suddenly, the second most powerful living Jedi (or Sith) started wondering if this wasn't going to be his day's _second_ horrible mistake. He already wasn't very gung-ho about this whole child murdering idea, getting maimed or killed for it would be the icing on top of the cake.

He proceeded carefully. Spotted a couple of tripwires that had been pulled with great expertise through the hallway - what were they teaching kids these days? - and _almost_ avoided a lightsaber set to turn on when a photoelectric sensor was disturbed. The kids were making leaps and bounds on his personal shit list, and suddenly the idea of murdering them didn't seem that absurd any more. That was his favourite cloak they had ruined. Though to an untrained eye, all his cloaks looked the same, and he could only tell his favourite based on a very close look at the direction the fabric was woven into along his right sleeve.

"Master Skywalker!"

He turned around. One of the kids was in front of him. Defenceless. This was his job, the reason why he had come here, the thing he needed to do to save Padmé from a horrible death. The one thing that would finally earn him recognition, admiration, and _respect_.

Well, obviously saving Padmé was the most important thing. The rest was more of a bonus.

Anakin pushed the button on his lightsaber, the blue blade unfolded in the half light with a sinister buzz.

"IT'S SO COOL!" screamed the kid, excited.

There was a sound of steps. Anakin didn't know whether to just shush the kid or slice his head off, but he did neither fast enough. A gaggle of children ran out of a hundred improbable hiding places. Turns out, teaching children how to jump five times their height removes whatever little limitation existed in their ability to crawl and fit absolutely anywhere to begin with.

"It's Master Skywalker!"

"The hero who defeated Count Dooku!"

"It's him! He came to save us!"

"Master Skywalker! Master Skywalker! You're the best!"

"Can you sign my lightsaber, Master Skywalker?"

"Master Skywalker, please tell us what to do!"

"Yes, Master Skywalker! Lead us! We need to defeat these Clone Troopers, they started attacking us!"

Recognition. Admiration. Respect.

Anakin slowly lowered his saber. Not only he didn't feel like he could do it - he started wondering whether there wasn't a way out to be found in this situation. Adult, self entitled Jedi Masters wouldn't listen to his orders, but here he had a small yet reasonably lethal army of absolutely adoring soldiers. The idea was crazy, but perhaps crazy enough to succeed. This had been a crazy day anyway. The odds of him seeing the next dawn had never been that great to begin with.

Sure, it also meant betraying and backstabbing his new master in a record two hours, but that probably had to count as a badge of honour for a Sith.

"Yes," he slowly said, turning the lightsaber off. "I came to help, and obviously nothing else. How many of you are there?"

The kids cheered and started high-fiving each other. One vivacious kid with a head of golden hair swaggered forward, acting like he was the leader of the pack. Anakin smirked - he liked this guy. Reminded him of himself when he was still back on Tatooine.

"There's thirty-two of us, Master Skywalker." he explained. "We counted ourselves first. As Master Yoda says, always know your forces! Or, your forces always know, is what he actually says."

Anakin ran a quick calculation. Thirty two kids; if each of them could keep Palpatine busy even for just one second while he slaughtered them, that was almost half a minute of time for him to find an opening and dive in for the kill. Not bad. Well, anyway, first thing was getting out of here, with the Temple under siege, without alerting the old Sith to anything.

"So," asked the man, "what happened here, were there no adults to defend you?"

"There was Master Cin Drallig," explained the kid, "but he was slain by the Clones when they attacked by surprise. We managed to push them back though, and then set up those traps."

"Right. How did you guys have all those ideas, by the way?"

The boy grinned. "I love the novels of _Yaku, Galactic Smuggler_ , Master Skywalker. I know them all by heart."

Discipline was getting relaxed, thought Anakin. To think that when Obi-Wan had found his porn when he was twelve he had made him do Force push-ups so much he was in pain for three months straight.

"Ok, you guys stand back then." Anakin cracked his neck, stretched his shoulders. "I'm going to go create an opening so we can leave."

The boy looked worried. "Will you be safe?"

" _Of course_ I will be safe!" the Jedi scoffed. "These clones wouldn't be able to hit a Jedi Master if he was as big as a barn."

"But Master Drallig was killed." objected the other, unconvinced.

Anakin smiled and patted the kid on the head. "What I mean," he said, "is they wouldn't be able to hit a _real_ Jedi Master."

* * *

"How did you even _find_ this place? A cocktail bar on a war-torn planet! Commander, you're pretty awesome after all."

"Happy to serve you, Master Secura."

"Ouch! I swear, every single muscle in my body hurts so much. You know what's the worst of it? When you're so tired that as soon as you sit down, the adrenaline rush ends and your entire body goes limp. It's like the Force drains out of you. You know what I mean?"

"I wouldn't know, Master Secura. We are not biologically programmed to feel tired; we lack the necessary genes."

"Oh. Well, it sucks. Oh, this place is wonderful though! I feel so relaxed right now you could shoot me in the back and I wouldn't even be able to react in time!"

"Why would I do that, Master Secura?"

"Just kidding, Commander. Uh, look at this! _The Outer Brim: a tour of the Galaxy in 100 cocktails_. This menu is so fancy! They really have one hundred, all numbered. I wonder what should I have...?"

"..."

"..."

"...Order 66."

"Sixty-six, you say? _Mustafarian Volcano_ , why, that sounds goo-"

* * *

"Aaaaaargh!"

The last of the Clones in front of the Temple was dragged inside by an irresistible telekinetic force, and once he passed the door, a blue flash sliced him in half. Anakin looked outside, careful. He did not know if the Temple was under surveillance - Palpatine probably had his hands full elsewhere - but doing it outside would have attracted too much attention, no matter what. Now here he was, locked into a Temple with a bunch of hyperactive Force-powered kids, a bunch of weapons, and a bunch of corpses that looked at him with the empty dead handsome eyes of Jango Fett. The ones that had lost their helmets, at least.

Part one of the plan had gone smoothly. Now came the part that wasn't as easy.

"Master Skywalker, Master Skywalker!" the kids flocked around him, enthusiastic. "You did it!"

"Yeah, as if it was ever in doubt. Now! Stand to attention, soldiers!"

The kids suddenly stiffened, but they quickly got the idea and ran to form ranks. Not _perfect_ ranks, but there'd be time to refine the details. Anakin smiled.

"You are now the _personal army_ of me, Master Skywalker! Also known as the Chosen One, he who shall bring Balance to the Force, and so on, so forth. You have the _honour_ of serving me, and I very much hope that all of you will be ready to _die_ before betraying the trust I am putting in you."

"YES, Master Skywalker!" shouted the Padawans as a single youngling. 

"As you have surely realised by now," Anakin started pacing back and forth, throwing the occasional grim stare at his underlings, "the situation is dire. A coup is being enacted against the Republic. I have certain sources guaranteeing me that the _Chancellor himself_ is behind this, trying to seize power. Yes, girl with the ponytails and her hand raised?"

"Master Skywalker, why would the Chancellor want to seize power?" asked the girl. "He's already the _Chancellor_."

"Good question. The Chancellor is, apparently, also the Dark Lord of the Sith."

There was a collective gasp.

"So he's just that evil," concluded Anakin with a shrug. "Any other questions? Yes, you?"

"Master Skywalker, where is Master Yoda? Should we wait for him?"

"Absolutely not!," shouted the young man. The kids all jumped back, scared. "When in battle, hope for the best, but plan for the worst. Master Yoda could have been captured or killed. Or he could even be in cahoots with the enemy. We just don't know. Right now, all we know is that we're here, we're alive, and we're going to _kick some ass!_ WHO'S WITH ME?"

There was a fierce roar and buzzing of lightsabers as the kids raised their weapons to the ceiling, screaming like berserkers. One of them screamed a bit louder, and as it turned out it was because his neighbour had lopped off his ear. Much laughter was had, and he was quickly medicated with some bacta. The reattached ear wasn't exactly in the position it had started in, but it would work for now. If he really was that unhappy with it in the future, another slash of lightsaber could fix it anyway.

"MASTER SKYWALKER, DUCK!"

Anakin turned around and instantly unsheathed his saber, wondering how could have a Mandalorian Mauling Mallard managed to get inside the Jedi Temple in Coruscant. He lost a fraction of a second looking for the deadly bird before understanding what the kid had meant, and by then, the Clone Trooper who had just _pretended_ to be dead already had a blaster rifle pointed to his face and was ready to squeeze the trigger.

Would have done that, too, if the blonde kid who had screamed hadn't also jumped forward, lightning fast, and in a blur of a single smooth movement chopped the trooper's arm and, immediately afterwards, his head.

"Thanks, kid. Good job there," Anakin thought that _saving my life_ would give the boy big ideas, "helping me out."

"Did you see how I sliced him? Whoosh! That was amazing!," screamed the kid, clearly overexcited by his first murder high. "Master, how was my form? Was it any good?"

"It was okay," admitted the other, with a smile. "Is that your usual reaction speed?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, Master Skywalker, I was a bit slow right now," the boy apologised. "I was really caught off-guard."

"A bit... slow?" Either this kid had mastered the art of the humblebrag to perfection, or he was a monster in the making. "Hm, sure. I would have done better. But congratulations on passing my test!"

The boy's face lighted up. "Oh, I was _sure_ you couldn't have possibly missed an attack as obvious as that!" he said. "You're not Master Skywalker for nothing."

"Indeed, I'm not. What's your name, young Padawan?"

"Jeevee, Master!"

"Nice to meet you, Jeevee," Anakin smiled graciously. "Now, to more pressing matters! With the last of the Clones defeated, it is time for us to withdraw from here. So, we need to blow up the Temple."

"I'm sorry, Master," a little girl raised his hand, "but _what the fuck_?"

"Language, Padawan!" the master scolded her. She shrunk away, while someone next to her slapped the back of her head. "This would really make more sense to you if you remembered what you studied in strategy. First, the enemy wants you dead, as I think the massive army that attacked the Temple is enough evidence of. So, it is better if they have reason to believe you dead. Second, the Temple possesses secrets and weapons - some of which would be useless in the hands of a regular Clone trooper, but deadly in the hands of the Dark Lord of the Sith!"

Obligatory gasps.

"And so, better to destroy them than let them fall in the wrong hands. Which means we're sneaking out in a way that will stop them from seeing us, and then blow up the place. I'm sure you did not manage to use up _all_ of the explosives that were in the armoury?"

"Oh, yes!," confirmed one of the children. "We found enough to blow up this entire place twice over."

"Perfect. Anyone knows a good way to leave without the others noticing?"

"There's the secret passage to my mom's place!" said Jeevee.

Anakin blinked. "Your mom lives near here?"

"She works near here," he explained. "And there's a way to get there by going through the sewers. I go sometimes! I knew of it because some of the adult Masters sneak out too, now and then, and I surprised one of them once. He was afraid that I'd tell Master Yoda - apparently he doesn't like it when they do that - and so he showed me, but I was supposed to keep the secret."

He paused for a moment, then covered his mouth with his hands. "Oh, crap."

The young man laughed. "It's fine, I won't tell Master Yoda. But tell me, what is this place where your mom works called...?"

" _The House of a Thousand Pleasures_ ," said Jeevee. "Though honestly, I don't get it. There's not much that's fun to do. No toys, no comics and no _Yaku_ books. Only a bunch of adults coming and going all the time. Where are all the pleasures? ...Master Skywalker? Are you feeling sick?"

The Jedi visibly staggered. "It's fine, boy. Remember me how old are you?"

"Seven, sir."

Anakin looked at the boy, with his bright eyes and a head of fair blonde hair in a bowl cut. All he was missing was his old podracing helmet and he would have been _identical_. Could have realised it much earlier, had they ever owned a single mirror back when he still was in Tatooine, or even just enough water at one time to see your reflection into.

"Master Skywalker, do you have any orders for me?," asked Jeevee.

"Stay close to me, do what I do, pay attention to the Force, and don't ever think of having sex before you're eighteen and really sure about how to use a condom, little man," said Anakin. "Now let's blow the shit out of this place. I always wanted to do that anyway."


	2. The Republic strikes back

**Episode 3.2 - The Republic strikes back**

"I do not know if I can do much for this, my lord..."

"Mas, you understand that tomorrow morning I must give a speech to the whole Senate, sell them on the whole Empire idea and all. Even with my skill at manipulating minds through the subtleties of the Force, I will have a certain disadvantage if my face looks like a puddle of puke in a Mos Eisley cantina."

"I realise that, my lord, but while I pride myself of being a subtle politician, I am hardly a great makeup artist. I am trying my best. Perhaps you should just come to terms with your current situation, and even try to play it to your advantage..."

"Having a sickening complexion and disgusting drooping lumps of flesh for cheeks may be normal for _you Chagrians_ , maybe, but for a healthy, pink, smooth human male at the peak of his years that is not the case at all!"

"My lord, if you are to rule over the entire Galaxy, perhaps the racist remarks are a bit..."

"Nonsense! I will be Emperor, and that means I get to remark on whoever I want to, however I like! Where's the fun otherwise?"

"Well, you already got to kill the Jedi."

"Hm, yeah, that was pretty enjoyable. Thank you for lifting my mood up, Mas."

"My pleasure."

"Still, that's a bit of a work in progress. My clone troopers even reported that a couple of them have escaped!"

"Oh, that is unfortunate. I am sure they will be caught. What about the ones at the Jedi Temple?"

"No problem there, Mas. I just sent my apprentice to deal with them. I am sure he will do a thorough and efficient job."

At that exact moment, a massive explosion pulverised and sprayed a layer of fine Jedi Temple dust over fifty square kilometres of Coruscant urban sprawl.

* * *

Padmé Amidala, once Queen and now Senator of the Republic for Naboo, looked outside the window, at the expanse of buildings and flying vehicles that was Coruscant. She was thinking about life, love, fate, but mostly, she was thinking about politics. Chancellor Palpatine had convoked yet another special session of the Senate, and she highly doubted this time it was only to brag again about some bullshit victory achieved in the Clone Wars. Everyone had basically stopped caring about _those_ years ago, and the Chancellor had stopped worrying about amassing more consensus at the same time. By now, the common sense sentiment seemed to be that, well, Palpatine was the Chancellor, and since he did his job as decently as one could hope for it to be done, it was just much less of a hassle to let him be a bit longer than trying to find a new one. Palpatine's end of term had come and gone, and all it had taken for him to remain Chancellor had been to pretend nothing special had happened. Everyone went along with that because, sure, why not? They all had bigger fish to fry anyway. It would have felt... unpatriotic to bring up such a tiny small detail as "the Chancellor should not be Chancellor any more".

Sometimes Padmé hated all those fucking idiots and wished she could just burn the whole place to the ground.

Sometimes she also considered that the really bad thing about being a senator and also pregnant was that she couldn't get completely shitfaced even when the situation absolutely called for her to do so.

Such were her musings when suddenly the scenery in front of her changed. There was a flash, and one moment later, a thunderous rumble and a shockwave that made the entire building tremble. In front of her eyes, the Jedi Temple had disappeared, replaced only by a cloud of smoke and debris.

She closed her eyes, shook her head, then reopened them.

The cloud was still there. The Jedi Temple was still nowhere to be seen.

She stared dumbfounded, unable to move or divert her eyes, while a terrible, creeping feeling started clenching her heart. Surely, _surely_ , he could not have been there, right? Yet where else would he be, right now? She needed to make sure, somehow - but she didn't know _how_ , whatever had happened, chaos would follow, and no one would have been able to tell with certainty where one lone Jedi could exactly be, he might have been _anywhere_...

"Padmé?"

She turned around. Behind her was Anakin, wearing a slightly battered robe, his cloak sliced up in a couple spots, but fundamentally unharmed. He was looking at her with a conspiratorial, slightly fearful stare.

"You _moron!_ ," she exclaimed.

Anakin blinked, confused. "What? What did I do?"

"Nothing." She turned again, because like _hell_ she'd let him see what was definitely just a bit of excess lacrimation in her eyes due to the dust that dang explosion had just scattered all over the place. "Just making an observation. What are you doing here? And what's going on? The _Jedi temple just freakin' blew up!_ "

"Oh, about that, I need to, huh, ask you something first."

Curiously, Anakin looked definitely wary. As if he was about to tell her something she would _not_ like. She squinted, because if her experience taught her anything, it was that when this man fucked up, he fucked up _good_. And given what had just happened, well, his usual _at least the Jedi temple is still standing!_ rebuttal wouldn't cut it. "Give me your best shot."

"Uhm. Yes. Ok, let's say, uhm. What do you think of children?"

Was this about the baby? Was this really the time? Padmé looked puzzled, and she pointed at her belly.

"What do I think? Well, if I thought too bad of them I wouldn't have kept-"

"No, no, I don't mean your children. Just, uh, children. In general."

What in the name of the Force was he driving to? "I think they're okay, I guess," she tried. "Unless they're being really annoying. Anakin, what does this have to do with-"

"Getting there. So, hypothetically, suppose I had a choice between, oh, say, murdering a bunch of children and bringing them all here to hide in your apartment, which would you prefer?"

The woman blinked a few more times. "Well," she started, "I surely would not want you to _murder_ children..."

"I knew you would understand! Padmé, I love you! HEY KIDS IT'S FINE YOU CAN COME IN!"

* * *

"GRRRUUAAAGHHHHH!"

"For your concern, thank you I do, brave Wookiee. A great disturbance in the Force, I sense."

"GRRAAAAAUGHHHH?"

"Unfortunately, all dead, they are already. Something different, this is. Not death, but despair and terror, it feels like."

"GRAAAAUGGH"

"Go now, I must. To Coruscant, fly I will, and the matter, investigate."

* * *

Chaos had taken possession of the apartment. There was screaming and there was shouting and there was pulling and pushing (both the normal and the Force kind), and pillows being tossed and beds being jumped on and at least two lightsabers being dangerously waved around.

Padmé could not find a single word to say for a long while.

Then suddenly she found _a lot_ , but half of them, she'd rather not say in front of so many young and impressionable minds.

"Anakin," she hissed, suddenly dragging the young Jedi with her by a sleeve of his robe, "I'll ask again, and this time I expect a straightforward answer: _what is going on?_ "

"It's a bit of a long story," replied the man, apologetic.

She stared him down. "Give me the short version."

"Ok." Anakin took a deep breath. "Palpatine's proclaimed himself Emperor, he's a Sith Lord and his face looks like bantha poop. I helped him kill Mace Windu and now am his apprentice, sort of, but have actually betrayed him, though he still doesn't know, and this apartment may as well contain all that remains of the Jedi order right now."

Padmé took a second to digest all that information and try to make sense of it. "Ok," she said, slowly, "now give me the _long_ version."

And Anakin told her everything about his very eclectic day and the many bad choices that had steered it on this admittedly very peculiar direction. Padmé listened intently and patiently, occasionally interrupting to ask for more details and clarifications, nodding along, without much emotion. When the story was finished, Anakin hung his head.

"...and so here I am. You see why at this point there's no turning back for me. But if we can defeat Palpatine, at least-"

"Now, you're rushing things," Padmé raised a hand, tapping the side of her cheek with one finger of the other in a thoughtful attitude. "Your situation isn't that bad, honestly."

"Not that bad? Padmé, _I was an accomplice in killing a Master from the Jedi Council!_ "

"Anakin, honey, I'm a politician. People have gotten away with worse. Now, if you had also killed the children, _that_ would have been tricky."

"Sure, but-"

"Look, from what you tell me, Master Windu was trying to perform an extrajudicial killing - he did not get a warrant or anything to carry out his little citizen's arrest, and the Chancellor has political immunity. You may even have done the right thing!"

"Really?"

"Sure. I'm telling you, if he had succeeded, he'd be in a _lot_ of trouble right now. In theory, there's a rule that says Siths are exclusive Jedi jurisdiction, but there was no need of it for thousands of years, as most Siths these days are enemy combatants anyway, and there were no independent witnesses to certify that Master Windu didn't just kill a frightened old man and stick a red lightsaber in his dead hand. From anyone else's viewpoint it would have been just a plain old military coup."

"I see. I did the right thing," Anakin's face brightened. "Huh, I guess the Republic _does_ work, sometimes!"

"Except for the part where we missed the Chancellor being an evil overlord and now he's just pulled a coup and is about to take over," said Padmé, shrugging. "We _should_ do something about that."

"Master Skywalker, Master Skywalker?," asked Jeeves, suddenly running in between them, pulling at the man's robe.

Padmé raised an eyebrow. "Master? Aren't you only a Knight?"

"The innocence of childhood sees beyond the eyes of many that would call themselves wise," said Anakin, with a serene smile, and then turned to Jeeves. "What is it, young disciple?"

"Well, Master Skywalker, I wanted to ask you something. Leevera and Pundia keep insisting that that pretty lady must be your girlfriend. I have told them it's not possible, that Master Yoda told us that Jedis can not get a girlfriend, _ever_ , but they keep snickering and being annoying because _girls_ , and so I came to ask you."

"Oh, uhm," Anakin hesitated for a moment. "No, you're right, of course, she's just-"

Padmé leaned in, smiling, and whispered in Jeeves' ear, "I'm his _wife_."

The boy's eyes bolted from his hero to the woman, back and forth, alarmed. Padmé put a finger in front of her lips.

"Let this be a lesson," she said, with a wink, "sometimes girls _know best._ "

"But Master Yoda said-" he tried objecting, his entire world shattered.

"Master Yoda, Master Yoda!," exclaimed Anakin. "Listen, Jeeves, you can't go on taking your advice about girlfriends from an old gnarly toad with a walking stick and a serious grammar impediment. You're a good looking young boy, and if you play your cards right, you got a much brighter future ahead of you than that - do you know what I mean?"

"Not really," said Jeeves, confused.

"Well, that's because you're still not old enough," concluded the young man. "Now, find a way to keep yourself and the others amused - I think there's a cartoon of _Yaku, Galactic Smuggler_ on TV. Master Skywalker has to discuss grown up stuff with his smart, capable and incredibly sexy wife."

The kid jumped up and down in excitement at hearing the name of his favourite fictional scoundrel and hurried away. Padmé chuckled and put a hand on Anakin's chest.

"Cute kid," she said, smiling. "He reminds me of someone..."

"Now's not the time for fond nostalgic memories!," suddenly blurted out Anakin. "We need to come up with a plan to stop the Chancellor."

"Well, you're the one with a lightsaber," replied Padmé. "Can't you just walk into his office and slice off his head?"

"You asked me the same thing two weeks ago," said the man.

"I know, but back then I was just venting. Now I'm being literal."

"Uhm, the thing is, I think he's really really," Anakin drew a deep breath, " _really_ strong. Also I sort of want him alive."

"And why is that?"

"Because... it's more... Jedi-like?"

"Ha-ha, cute. No, the real reason. What, he's got dirt on you?"

"...what?"

"Ani, I know the pattern, and I know how men like him work. He's a slimy fucking snake, is what he is. Forget about him being a Sith - he's a _politician_ , of the worst sort. You were all buddy-buddy with him, and he clearly had his arm so far up your ass he might have been the one doing to me with his fingers what I _thought_ you were doing with your tongue..."

"...Padmé, you're scaring me."

"Sorry, I call this my Senator Mode, you want me at my best, you get me at my worst too. Anyway, I don't judge you for that - just kidding, I _totally_ judge you, you little adorable dumbass, and when this is all over, that's going to be the most epic _I told you so_ speech ever - but the point is, a man like him, he'll have wanted a guarantee, something to make sure you would obey him and not immediately kill him at the first chance, so out with it, don't hold anything back, you get a total amnesty from me on _literally anything_ , but before we do anything I need to know what exactly he's got, so tell me or I swear I'll just grab a blaster, walk to his office and we'll see if it's really true what they say, that the Dark Side of the Force hath no fury like a woman who's _fucking pissed off._ "

She ended her tirade with the last of her air, leaving a stunned Anakin to stare dumbly, then drew in a big breath, crossed her arms, and waited.

Anakin hung his head. "Padmé, I'm sorry," he said, defeated. "The truth is, I did it for you."

She blinked. "What?"

"Well, see... I had these dreams where you... the baby was being born and you... something happened... and after what happened with my mother, these could have been premonitions... and Palpatine said that he could... that he could..."

The young man turned away his gaze, unable to face his wife, trying to hide his shame. "I'm sorry, but I just-"

Padmé extended a hand, and gently, touching his cheek, she turned him to look at her.

"That's it?," she asked with a sweet smile, "All of this - you were doing it for me? To save me from what you saw in your dreams? Aww, Ani, how can I even stay mad at you?"

"Also he threatened to tell you that Jeeves is a child I did not know I conceived when I lost my virginity with a prostitute at fifteen," quickly added Anakin.

"Aaand that's how," the woman clapped her hands. "But I guess I'm not one to talk there, considering how I lost mine. Man, those royal parties on Naboo were _wild-_ "

"Wait, what? What?," the Jedi opened his eyes wide. "You never told me that story!"

"And I will never tell it again," she concluded, with a satisfied smile. "That's your punishment. But going back to those dreams, I don't much fancy the idea of dying either, so let's see what we can do about them. Describe them to me in detail."

"Uhm, I don't know. You were in, like, a hospital room," Anakin recalled. "And the baby was being born. You were in pain, screaming, like something was tearing you apart! And there was blood, a lot of blood, and- and-"

The veteran of the Clone Wars had his words fail him, and stopped talking, defeated and traumatised by the memory. Padmé looked unimpressed.

"Ok, and then?," she asked, impatient.

"That's it," replied Anakin. "That was the dream."

The woman massaged the bridge of her nose. "Anakin, no offense, but, how much do you know about how a baby is born?"

"Uh? I mean, the baby just sort of...," he made a vague undulating motion with his hand, like he was trying to mind trick someone, "...comes out..."

Padmé sighed. "Figures that the Jedi Temple wouldn't have the best sex ed program of Coruscant. Ok, so, here we go..."

She explained it to him. In excruciating detail.

"OH MY FORCE THAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO YOU?" screamed Anakin, as horrified as he'd ever been.

"Yup."

"BUT HOW DOES IT EVEN - IT'S NOT EVEN REMOTELY WIDE ENOUGH TO -"

"Yuupp."

"THAT CAN NOT BE NORMAL! MY DREAMS - ALL THAT PAIN AND BLOOD - "

"Yuuuppp. On the other hand, at this point, just to stay on the safe side, I think I might have to plan for a C-section - don't even ask me what that is or you'll straight up faint."

"Wait, so are you telling me that Palpatine _tricked me_?," Anakin growled, suddenly switching from horror to rage. "That asshole let me believe that you would _die_ just so that he could manipulate me?"

"Yes, that's the long and short of it," she said. "The good news is, you're now at liberty to murder him."

"Oh, _I will_."

"The problem is, even if you managed to do that, the Chancellor still has a lot of political support, incredible as it sounds. I would not want you to end up in jail just for rightfully lightsabering him."

"I would not like that either," agreed Anakin. "Jail is bad."

"Your confession earlier gave me another idea though. So, I need to ask you a few more details about your conversation with dear old Sheev..."

* * *

Obi-Wan Kenobi stepped down from the ship, stretching his arms in graceless movements he would never have shown in front of anyone else. But man, flying was _a pain_ , and age was not doing him any favours. The Force might give you vigour and all, but when you started hitting your thirties, sitting in a pilot's chair for hours would still make your back hurt no matter what. Now he could finally relate to why Master Qui Gonn had convinced him that somehow massaging his neck and shoulder was a sophisticated training technique that would allow him to better understand the flow of energy in the human body. That _had_ always seemed quite fishy to him.

Thinking of Qui Gonn Jin though saddened Obi-Wan, because of course, he'd been dead for years now. He tried to switch his focus to the current situation, and the reason why he'd come back to Coruscant, but that didn't do wonders for his mood. It just reminded him that everyone else was dead too.

Well, not _everyone_ perhaps. He could feel a slight tremor in the Force that he'd come to associate with the presence of an especially powerful Master. He was also quite sure who this was - and right a few landing pads away. He ran to meet the ship, distinctly of Wookie craft.

"Master Yoda," he said, finally beaming with a ray of hope.

The little green sage nodded to him as he came closer, using his stick to support himself.

"Happy to see you, I am. Lots of hardships, you must have survived." he replied, with a worried look.

"You can say so, Master. I am glad to see you. Something vile has happened, but knowing that there's two of us makes me hope we can perhaps still have a chance."

Yoda nodded. "Not two," he replied. "Three."

He lifted the stick towards a bridge connecting the landing pad with the rest of the spaceport. Obi-Wan looked in that direction, and was surprised to see a lot of smoke that shouldn't have been there - unless a coolant tube was leaking, which would be an abysmal sign of disrepair.

Out of the white vapours emerged suddenly a figure, cloaked in a dark robe, walking slowly, their face concealed. Obi-Wan's hand immediately darted to his lightsaber, but Yoda made a gesture as if to tell him to stay still. The cloaked figure walked forward.

"Welcome back, Jedis," said the mysterious man, with a cavernous voice. "I am... Darth Vader!"

Hearing the Sith moniker, Obi-Wan drew his lightsaber and bolted forward. But the cloaked man had been expecting that, and with a hand gesture, a crate from the side was tossed across the platform. Obi-Wan dodged it expertly, letting it pass forward - but as it was in front of him, the crate stopped with unerring accuracy, and dropped to the ground, right on top of the Jedi master's toes. He yelled like a little girl.

"That," said Darth Vader, solemnly, "is pay back for when you moved the bed in my room and didn't tell me, so I hit it when coming back in the dark."

"Your petty grievances, discuss later," intervened Yoda, with no anger in his voice, only some annoyance. "The meaning of this, you should explain to us, young Skywalker."

"Anakin?," Obi-Wan raised his head, with an expression distorted by anguish. And toe pain. Lots of toe pain. "Anakin, is that really you?"

"Just like I would expect from the greatest Jedi Master," replied the cloaked man, and he pulled his hood down with both hands to theatrically reveal his face. "It is indeed me. Anakin Skywalker. The Chosen One. He who will bring balance to the Force. The Disciple of the Emperor. The Fallen who shall Rise. The-"

"Hmph. For a few hours, a Sith you've been, and hot shit, you think you are," interrupted him Yoda, unimpressed. "Better ones than you, I have spanked."

"If you think so, you are free to try," said Anakin, with a smirk. Then, "or you would be, if we did not have more urgent matters to attend to," he hurriedly added.

Yoda nodded. "Agree I can, on that much. What has happened, you must explain."

"Anakin, what is the meaning of this?," asked Obi Wan, his face distorted by anguish and regret. "Is it really about that one time I moved the bed? Because I did not-"

"Don't be foolish, you, whom I once called master!," shouted Anakin, with thunderous voice that he was probably uselessly wasting Force specifically to amplify. "It was me heeding the call of Darkness, rising up to fulfil my Destiny, and escaping the shackles of small-minded masters like yourselves who would not-"

"A hoe, it must be." snapped Yoda. "Always a hoe, it is."

"I take exception to that, _Master_ Yoda," said a fourth voice. Out of the smoke behind Anakin came out Padmé, wearing as practical a gown as she could fit on her heavily pregnant figure. "Unless you want to have it on the records that you called a Senator of the Republic, what was it?"

She smiled wickedly. Yoda looked away and muttered something between himself about thirst leading to the Dark Side.

"Padmé, sweetie, I have _everything_ under control here...," started Anakin, but he found himself with Padmé's finger on his lips.

"You're spooking poor Obi-Wan, is what you're doing. Now stop being such a little Sith."

"Well, technically I am-"

" _Technically,_ Palpatine is now the legitimate ruler of this whole galaxy," she rebutted. "But we're not here to worry about technicalities, are we?"

Obi-Wan stepped forward, now just purely confused. "Palpatine?," he asked. "He's the one behind all of this, is he? Anakin, how often did I _tell you_ that he was shady?"

"You do not get to tell me _anything_ any more, Obi-Wan!," thundered Anakin. "I have surpassed you and your judgement! My only-"

"Yeah, told him so too," Padmé cut him short. "There's going to be time to lecture him later, though. In summary, Palpatine is the Dark Lord of the Sith. He's really strong..."

" _Really_ strong," added Anakin, with emphasis, and a worried look.

"...and has the Senate wrapped around his finger. So, how do we stop him?"

"From his body, his head we remove," said Yoda, with a grim stare, twirling his lightsaber among his fingers. "Easy enough, it will be."

Obi-Wan looked at the old master with a slightly scandalised look. Granted, that was how Jedis solved most of their problems, but it wasn't meant to be _said_ out loud. Then again, losing your entire religious order in a single day probably had a way to make you stop caring about appearances.

"I'm _all_ for the head-removing, believe me," intervened Padmé, "but we're also supposed to think about afterwards. I don't really want to see you - and in particular, I don't want to see _Anakin_ \- go to jail over this. Nor do I want to see an Empire replaced by a military dictatorship by the Jedi. We poor Force-less peons have our own interests, you see."

"So what do you plan?," asked Obi-Wan, perplexed. "We can't beat a Sith Lord without violence. And the Dark Side has a powerful influence - if he had years to worm his way into the minds of the Senators, that won't be easily undone."

"Then let's not do that," she replied. "How does this Force thing operate? Are we talking, real mind control?"

"That would be just focused on single targets, and only on the really weak-minded," explained the Jedi.

"That's Jedi speak for _the morons_ ," helpfully explained Anakin.

"We have discussed this, Anakin," Obi-Wan sighed. "But, let's say - _for the sake of simplicity_ \- yes, that's it. For such long times, on a whole room full of Senators, many of which are probably rather sharp-"

"Oh, trust me, master Kenobi, less than you'd hope," bemoaned the woman, shaking her head.

"-anyway, it needs to be a subtler suggestion. It will make them go along as long as everything, let's say, follows the script," he made a vague hand gesture at that. "If something completely unpredictable comes along, their minds might just be confused, and ready to hang onto anything else that offers a semblance of sense."

Padmé beamed. "That is _exactly_ what I hoped for," she said, clapping her hands. "Then, hear me out. I have a cunning plan."


	3. Return of the Sith

**Episode 3.3 - Return of the Sith**

The Eertie clan had long been one of the pillars upholding morals and propriety on planet Leim for centuries. A noble family with a genealogy that vanished into the times of legend, they had produced uncountable governors, kings, and preachers - _especially_ preachers. Their influence had shaped the culture of the planet, defending its traditional values - such as chastity, modesty, and keeping women locked at home - in the face of change, time, and the many, many temptations that tried to worm their way into their society from the larger Republic. So much they feared those influences, in fact, that they had considered the possibility of joining the Secessionists; however that option had quickly flown out of the window when it had become clear that the Trade Federation would not renege on its principles of absolutely free, unimpeded private initiative, which included the production and sale of obscene material. In fact, that was a major source of revenue for them.

And so the latest scion of the clan, Lieb, could only be proud of what he represented and defended as he walked for the first time in the Galactic Senate as the representative of Leim, to take the place of his brother, who had been elected to it but had tragically disappeared without leaving a trace when his private ship was cruising through the space of resort world Oor-Gi, surely due to a dastardly Separatist attack. The tragedy was made all the more painful by the fact that his ship carried a large part of Leim's own treasury in the form of gold and other untraceable valuables, which was being donated to the war effort. Truly, Lieb's brother had died a hero, and he couldn't be prouder to now fill his shoes.

It also looked like his first day would mark something of a historical occasion. Chancellor Palpatine had called the emergency session hinting that there would be important announcements ahead. He had said nothing more, but rumours had it that this might be the big day. For a long time now the Chancellor's power and hold on the Senate had only grown; and anyone with half a brain could see where that was headed. Many people too hung onto the formalities of the democratic process might find the idea distasteful, but to Lieb and his family, there was absolutely nothing wrong with the possibility of Palpatine just deciding there was no need for any _other_ Chancellors in the foreseeable future. The way Lieb saw it, this continuous business of elections had something of the promiscuous lifestyle of certain libertines who would jump from one partner to the other, never committing to the quiet happiness of married life. A virtuous man would know when they had found the right match, and know to search no more.

His train of thought was interrupted when he bumped into a small figure, small enough to have escaped his gaze. He lowered his eyes to see a column of children orderly following around a young man with a conspicuous, spectacular moustache.

"Sorry for that, youngling," he said, smiling paternally to the young bud below him, who was wearing a hoodie with the hood pulled almost entirely to hide their head, perhaps out of shyness.

"Where you put your feet, pay attention," said the shy young bud, in a voice much _older_ than one would have expected, "or cut them someone will."

"Yoodie, are you making trouble?," asked the man at the head of the column. "Why can't you be more like Jeeves? He's behaving very well!"

A blonde, smart-looking kid smiled brightly right next to the man, and the hooded child simply mumbled something about a teacher's pet. Wait, now that Lieb noticed - was his face _green,_ under that hood?

"I apologise for my pupil's behaviour," said the teacher, coming closer. "They're very excited today. They've been waiting to make this trip to the Senate for a long time."

Senator Eertie chuckled. "Oh, you don't need to apologise, they're just children. Seeing the workings of the ever beating heart of the Republic, eh? That is how you raise some young upright citizens! Well done!"

"Yes, upright citizens," confirmed the man, nodding. "Now, we have much to see, so if you don't mind..."

"Have I seen you somewhere?"

The teacher froze. 

"I couldn't imagine," he said, slowly, his right hand casually hovering over his belt while he scratched his massive moustache with the other. "I have _never_ set foot in this building until today-"

"SKYWALKER!," exclaimed the Senator, slapping his hand with his fist.

The teacher tensed up even more. Meanwhile, the hooded kid swiftly and silently approached Lieb from behind.

"Anakin Skywalker, the war hero!," he continued. "You resemble him a lot! Well, outside of the facial hair. I must say, it gives you an air of dignity that that young Jedi lacks."

"I've often been told so," replied the teacher, relaxing, while little Yoodie quickly moved away and back into the column of the other children. "What a coincidence, huh?"

"Well, it's a big galaxy, someone has to have someone else's face, right?," said Lieb, quoting a stand-up comedian that had been dead for at least two hundred years and laughing heartily at his own wit. "Do carry on, then. I would not want to slow down your visit."

The teacher nodded and thanked, then scurried away, followed by that little crowd of children.

If that encounter had lifted Senator Eertie's spirits, though, the next one was fated to spoil his mood for good, as it reminded him of one of the most corrupt, profane and _lascivious_ presences to ever be inflicted on the otherwise noble institution of the Senate.

"Amidala," he mumbled, with gritted teeth.

"Oh, Senator Eertie, what a pleasure!," she sang, smiling brightly as she walked through the foyer towards him, a man that he'd never seen before at her arm. The way Lieb saw it, she was a stain on the honour of the Senate. Between her rumoured dalliances with an unknown suitor - which, he guessed looking at her companion, was now being brought in the open, because she was just that brazen - her unmarried pregnancy, and the rumours about those royal parties on Naboo that everyone knew about, it was hard to believe that she'd come from the same political school as virtuous, modest, incorruptible Chancellor Palpatine. It went to show the difference between the old generation and the young.

"Padmé," whispered the man at her arm, who seemed exceedingly worried and suspicious. "Perhaps we should not stop-"

"Oh, nonsense, Wobi-Han!," she replied, waving a hand. "Senator Eertie here is an old friend, and I'm sure we can spare a few minutes for a chat."

"Absolutely," replied the other, still gritting his teeth. "I hope you are fine. When is the baby due?"

"Any moment now, any moment!," said Padmé, beaming. "Well, I sure hope not today, precisely during the Chancellor's speech. It would be a pity to ruin such a beautiful moment, wouldn't it?"

"I am sure it will not happen," said Lieb. He meant it, of course - he would personally kick the woman and her newborn bastard out of the building if it served the purpose of protecting that one sacred, historical moment.

"Ah, but who knows what the future holds!," replied the woman, and she turned around, dragging the man behind her. "Not even Jedi Masters can see that far, right?"

"So I am told," replied the man, flatly.

"Then maybe this day will hold one or two surprises for us after all," she concluded, with a wink. "See you on the Senate's floor, Lieb."

* * *

"Here, my lord, if I could just perhaps apply some more foundation..."

"Oh, enough of that, you nincompoop! You've been applying foundation for so long, it will take a Death Star to take it off once this circus is over."

"A... what, my lord?"

"Never mind. You did not hear that, because if you had, you would have to die, and I can always use a flunky, however incompetent. Now go apply foundation to your buttocks. They'll still look better than my face."

"As you wish, my lord."

Mas Amedda bowed solemnly and took his leave, after having whispered for long in the Chancellor's ear, surely discussing high and important matters of State. The entire Senate held its breath, some in fear, others in expectation, as Palpatine rose to his seat, came to speak, there, finally, even if from under a hood, showed his face...

From at least fourteen different stands came sound of retching and puking. Someone fainted. The paramedics were called to carry them away.

"Citizens of the civilized galaxy!," Palpatine started his proclamation, unfazed, with a voice that sounded as cracked and deformed as his face, "on this day-"

"OH MY FORCE, WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH HIS FACE?!?," screamed a Senator who'd just then walked in.

The eyes of the entire room were pointed on him. The Chancellor made a sharp sign with his finger.

Guards dragged the man away.

"On this day," he continued, "we mark a transition. For a thousand years, the Republic stood as the crowning achievement..."

Senator Eertie listened in satisfaction as the speech took exactly the direction he hoped for. There was what he expected, what he wanted from Chancellor Palpatine, what he'd hoped for from day one; the firm yet kind hand of a father, gently clenching the Republic in its grasp, ready to lead it to something greater. It had been long overdue, and finally, nothing, absolutely nothing could convince him that this was not the best possible outcome.

There was a lot of ranting about the Jedi, and the future of the Galaxy, and such. The Chancellor mentioned a few times the word 'Empire'. Lots of Senators clapped. Some looked enthusiastic, others looked about as emotional as protocol droids who had just had their memory wiped. But they clapped nonetheless.

"We have been tested, but we have emerged stronger!" shrieked Palpatine, now fully carried by the momentum of his own epic speech. "We move forward as one people: the Imperial citizens of the first Galactic-"

"Excuse me! Excuse me!"

All the heads turned to the balcony. A young man and a group of children were standing there, all raising and waiving their hands to draw attention to themselves, interrupting the otherwise solemn moment. Normally, Palpatine would have thought that such disrespect deserved a painful, protracted death achieved with some exotic torture; however, today he felt particularly upbeat, thanks to his crowning of decades of meticulous planning and acquiring absolute power, and he liked to think he had a soft spot for children, so he decided he would make sure their executions would be painless.

However, before that, he needed to entertain them. He'd already had someone removed from the premises, and having clones drag too many people out in the middle of a Senate session for a summary execution might send the wrong message about what his reign would look like. Well, actually the entirely right message, but still.

"What is it...," he squinted, trying to make out the face of the stranger, "young man with a strangely familiar face and a glorious moustache?"

"Ah, yes, thanks, your... excellency... majesty," bumbled the man. "Well, see, I'm a teacher for these kids from Coruscant's District Five Primary School, and we've been waiting for weeks to have this _Ask the Chancellor_ trip."

Palpatine didn't remember agreeing to any such thing, but then again, as long as he had to keep up this painful charade of being a 'democratic leader', he'd learned to just tune out all the obligatory interactions with the peasants, so maybe he simply did not remember. "And you could not bring this up at another time?," he asked, irritated.

"Yes, but see, the trip was _Ask the Chancellor_ , and it seemed like this was about to turn into _Ask the Emperor_ , and that would require changing a lot of forms-"

"I see. Bureaucracy, am I right?" Palpatine chuckled. "We should really put all those pesky bureaucrats against a wall and shoot them, yeah?"

Everyone laughed, including the bureaucrats, who would soon find the joke a lot less funny.

"As you say, your excellent majesty - majestic excellency - your honour," continued the man, with a profusion of bows. Man, his servility was _disgusting._ It was almost as if he was bowing so deeply and often to avoid his face being seen clearly on purpose. Palpatine wondered if he couldn't leave him alive and keep him as a personal attendant. There was something invigorating about having someone lick the floor you walk on.

"Very well, you may proceed," he conceded. "So, have your kids ask their questions!"

One of the children jumped to the chance. "Mister Palpatine, sir, is it true that you're the Dark Lord of the Sith-"

There was a pause and a sound like an elbow jamming under someone's ribs.

"-uation comedy, sir?," he finished, significantly less enthusiastic. 

Palpatine smiled. "I'm pleased to hear someone so young has read my autobiography, _Relative Power_. Yes, I did dabble in scriptwriting for TV when I was younger."

And now the Galactic Network would _have_ to produce and air six full seasons of _A Droid in the Family,_ whether they liked the jokes or not, but he did not mention that.

Another hand shot up. "Mister Palpatine, sir, why did you say the Jedi are bad? I thought the Jedi were the guardians of peace and justice."

"Let's put it this way, young potential dissenter," replied the great leader with a smile. "Is there a teacher's pet in your class? Someone who gets always put in charge of looking after everyone when the teacher is away, who tells on everyone who did something that they were not supposed to, and who is, so to say, the guardian of peace and justice in the class?"

"Oh, yes!," the boy's face brightened. "That would be Liatha!"

A little nerdy-looking Twi'lek girl's face, a few places over, beamed with pride.

"And don't you think she's the _worst thing ever_ and would very much like to get rid of her?," finished Palpatine.

The kid nodded emphatically. "Oh, so much! Everyone hates Liatha."

"WHAT?!," screamed the girl in question, in horror, looking around for solidarity. "That's not true! Tell him that it's not true!"

Everyone looked away in discomfort and embarrassment, including the moustachioed teacher. Liatha broke in a desperate cry.

"And that's how we all _really_ always felt about the Jedi," concluded the man. "Just one more question? I've got an Empire to start, and then run."

"An old holo-film of you, I found," said little Yoodie, with his unusually raucous child's voice and his face still concealed by a hood, "your holo-autograph, could you add to it?"

Palpatine grinned. "Of course, little fan! Let me just fetch a holo-pen. Here, you can send it to the main Senate room's projector, so I can reach it."

"My pleasure, it will be."

The air in the centre of the Senate room glowed, bubbled into blobs of light, and finally took a shape. At first, all that was possible to see was two human figures, one standing, the other crouching on all fours. Then their lineaments delineated better, and it was possible to distinguish them. The person standing was clearly Chancellor Palpatine, wearing a long, dark robe. His expression was somehow... distorted in a grimace of pleasure and sadistic laughter, but it was definitely him, as he looked before his face had suffered that little Force lightning accident. His robe was lifted enough to leave the lower front of his body uncovered, from the navel down. The one on all fours, right in front of his loins, was a woman. Entirely naked, except for a Yoda mask completely hiding her face.

"Yes!," shrieked the man, in ecstasy, "Tell me how you're my bitch!"

"Your bitch, I am!," gasped the other, amidst one thrust and another. "By you, I am being fucked!"

There was a wave of uncomfortable silence across the Senate room, except for the moans and shrieks that kept coming from the video. On the balcony, some children underwent a very rude sexual awakening, except for Jeeves, who had his eyes providently covered up by his teacher.

"What a joke in bad taste," said the real Chancellor, waving his hand in a dismissive gesture. "Such a low resolution hologram could be doctored. That could literally be anyone!"

"Say my name, you bitch!," shouted the holo-Palpatine, laughing. "I am Chancellor Palpatine! Senate Authorisation Code PLX74T5632!"

"By Chancellor Palpatine, I am being fucked!," shouted again the woman, "PLX74T5632, his Senate Authorisation Code is!"

The silence got only more uncomfortable. Stares were pointed at Palpatine.

"Well, what I do in my own time is just my private business!," he blurted out. "You don't have a right to-"

"And what am I paying you from, bitch?," kept going his hologram. "Say what I'm paying you from!"

"A Defence Budget credit card!," gasped the woman. "With Clone War money, you're fucking me! Ah!"

"Damn right I am! I am the fucking Senate!"

"The Senate, I am fucking!"

"Yes!"

"YES!"

"YEEEEEEEEEE-"

The video got cut short, plunging the entire room into darkness and, finally, true silence, and sparing them to have to witness the Chancellor climaxing, which frankly, was on absolutely no one's bucket list. In the Naboo stand, Obi-Wan - that is, Wobi-Han, of course - leaned in next to Padmé, who was looking very smugly satisfied with herself.

"How did you even know where to look?," he asked. "That was a very lucky find."

"Experience. Anakin told me how the old monster had threatened him with that old parlour trick, pretending to know what he was thinking by making very basic guesses. But then he added a very specific one about Anakin hitting a brothel-"

"Wait, Anakin did _what_?"

"Oh, don't be like that, if I can get over it you can too. Anyway, it seemed odd to me that he could really guess something like that with the Force, and wondered if he didn't know by more mundane means. Such as having visited the establishment himself, and knowing people personally to get information from it. So I went looking. This exceeded my wildest expectations, though. I am in awe. It's just... beautiful."

She said this with genuinely teary eyes. Obi-Wan didn't think that _beautiful_ would have been his choice of word, but it certainly was a useful find. In fact, having recovered from the initial phases of utter stupor, shock, and just a little bit of nausea, the Senate now seemed en route for the next stage of their reaction: utter, unbridled _outrage_.

"This is unacceptable!," shouted Senator Eertie, always at the forefront of every morality crusade, "Chancellor Palpatine, I am sorely disappointed in your behaviour! I would have been willing to let you hold the reins of our great Republic, lead it into a new era, because I believed you possessed the moral fibre to-"

"SCREW THE MORAL FIBRE!," shouted someone in the stand right below his, a massive Kugnorian whose hands alone seemed as big as Eertie's whole body, "MY PLANET HAS BEEN SLAVING AWAY TO PAY INTO THAT WAR CHEST, AND YOU SPENT THE MONEY ON WHORES?"

"Now, now, Senator Derou," said the Chancellor, waving his hand, "I think here we're all making some rushed assumptions on what-"

"THE ONLY THING I'M GONNA RUSH IS YOU!," roared the Kugnorian. "YOU AND ME, LET'S MEET OUT AND SEE WHO'S TOUGHER! I'LL TEAR YOU A NEW ONE, AS TRUE AS IT IS THAT MY NAME IS THUN!"

Palpatine had to check the session records in front of him to make sure. His name was, indeed, Thun.

The voices of protest raised one after another, louder by the second.

"An absolute outrage!"

"An unprecedented scandal!"

"Engaging in obscene behaviour!"

"Releasing important security details to the public!"

"Embezzling Republic money!"

"Harbouring a secret crush for master Yoda!"

"ENOUGH!" Palpatine's voice, croaking yet powerful, echoed through the entire Senate room. "I was standing here, just minutes ago, ready to proclaim myself Emperor, to destroy everything that this Republic stands for, its Constitution and its very democratic principles, and you were ready to _let me do it!_ How in the name of the Force are you now all jumping ship over this bullshit?!?"

"Having an Emperor is all fine and good," said Senator Eertie, with absolute, firm conviction, "but there are lines that shouldn't be crossed."

Chancellor Palpatine looked at him with wide open, bloodshot eyes. Then he closed them, took a deep breath, and spoke calmly.

"Very well," he said. "You want to do things the hard way."

He pushed a button on his console. Almost instantly, various hundreds of Clone Troopers smashed open the doors and ran inside, blasters at the hip, taking strategic positions in multiple stands, setting up many sniper nests from which they could shoot pretty much, well, anyone in the room.

Palpatine grabbed the few paper sheets he'd been reading his whole Empire-founding speech from. Then, making sure everyone could see what he was doing, he ripped them into little pieces, spat on the pieces, made a little ball of sticky paper and saliva with them, and tossed it at Eertie, guiding it through the air with the Force so that it would hit his forehead with uncanny precision.

"Now listen up, you insufferable bunch of cocksuckers," started his new, improved, improvised speech. " _I now officially own your ass._ I am done putting up with your bullshit. Done! No more voting, no more speeches, no more long sessions sitting in this stupid room talking endlessly to agree on when to hold the next endless talk. I wanted to keep you around for old times' sake for a few years but clearly you're not going to be a lot of fun, so change of plans. This entire Senate thing is dissolved, effective immediately. Any of you that want to submit their resignation now and go back to whatever mudball they call home are free to do it. Anyone else will be resigned by sufficient application of blasters. No big ideas about going all hero on me. I exterminated the Jedi. I have the full loyalty of the Clone Army. There's a little secret backdoor in their DNA - they've been genetically programmed to blindly obey the highest ranking Sith Lord at any given time. And guess who that is?"

And saying so, the Chancellor twirled his fingers in what looked like a sleight of hand, and suddenly a lightsaber appeared in them. It lit up, its red beam eliciting a collective gasp.

"Now for my government programme," he continued. "I mostly plan to _do whatever the fuck I want_. If you had a problem with the little tape shown earlier, get used to it. The future is going to look a lot like that, except with all of the Galaxy in place of that bitch. If you don't like it, I plan to kill you. Right now this is a long, boring process, but I have wonderful ideas on how to speed it up. I also plan to enact some little adjustments to the balance of power among the various species in this Galaxy. Humans are all right, mostly because I am one of them. Twi'leks are acceptable as long as they stick to their only natural vocation as exotic dancers. Wookies are good for manual work when alive, and for carpeting when not. As for Gungans-"

His eyes turned to the only representative of that people sitting in the Senate, close to Padmé Amidala; one Jar Jar Binks.

"-I can only try to express in words how embarrassed and enraged I have been, my whole life, of sharing a planet of origin with your useless spawn," he spat, in utter disgust. "I suggest those of you who want to avoid suffering kill themselves now, because 'genocide' is too kind a word to describe what I'm going to do to _you_."

He stopped, finally, still breathing heavily from the effort of speaking all of that in a single tirade. He then took a look at all of it - the room left in stunned silence, the expressions of Senators suddenly morphing into fear, anguish, outright terror. It was all exactly how he'd always dreamed. Even better, really, because he never thought he'd be genuinely able to do it so blatantly. Perhaps it was a good thing that his hand had been forced; he could iron out the details later. There would be problems, but nothing that a good lightsaber and a few clone divisions couldn't fix. Still, though, he noticed that not _everyone_ was reacting properly to his takeover. That bratty upstart Amidala, for example, looked more like she was grinning smugly, as if this all was part of some nefarious plan of hers finally falling into place. The school children were mostly confused. But their teacher - their teacher was fixating his eyes on _him_ , specifically. Confidently. Defiantly.

"Do you have something to say, or should I just have you shot as it is?," asked Palpatine, turning to him.

"I do have something to say," he replied. "You claim no one could possibly stop you. But it seems to me, you're not accounting for those who could still use the Force against you."

The Emperor laughed. "Pah! I told you. I exterminated all the Jedi."

"Sure." The teacher's hand grabbed his moustache, and with a single motion ripped it off. Under it, to everyone's shock, appeared the face of none other than Anakin Skywalker, hero of the Clone Wars. "But I am no Jedi!"

A few Senators looked confused. "I'm pretty sure you are!," shouted someone. "I saw you on the holo-news!"

The Clone Troopers cocked their blasters, started taking aim.

"Not any more," he said. "Because, see, the Chancellor here ordained me a Sith just yesterday. My new name is Darth Vader!"

The kids around him looked alarmed, one started pulling out his lightsaber, but he shushed them with a gesture they'd agreed meant _just play along_.

"A stupid story," replied Palpatine, coldly. "You have no evidence to show that-"

The holo-projector turned on before he could even finish the sentence. This time, the blob shaped up to show Palpatine and Anakin, the latter kneeling in front of the former, right in the Chancellor's office, with a broken window in the background.

"How is it that we have all these convenient holo recordings of the Chancellor's misdeeds?," whispered Obi-Wan, while the scene that unequivocally showed Palpatine ordaining Anakin a Sith played out.

"It's a funny story," replied Padmé. "See, with some skill we can reconstruct the images and sound by using the data acquired from a bunch of sensors that are pretty much everywhere. They're part of the hydraulic network, monitoring the functioning of the valves that control the passage of the liquid inside."

"Ah," the man nodded, knowingly. "Watergates."

The video finished playing. The Clones now lowered their weapons, puzzled, and looked at their various squad commanders for help. A Jedi not being a Jedi anymore was a very confusing concept. They started discussing the exact implications and wording of Order 66. In some teams, the debate got heated.

"Very well, Lord Vader," said Palpatine, his voice now cracking with anger. "No more games. I acknowledge you as my Sith apprentice, and you claim this name for yourself too. Yet you _dare_ betray me in this way?"

Anakin shrugged, nonplussed. "Sure. Why not?"

The other sighed. "Fair enough. I suppose that makes you the fastest learning apprentice I've ever had." He twirled his lightsaber around, and a ferocious snarl distorted his lineaments. "Now on to killing you."

With a screech, he jumped, his Force powers making his leap utterly superhuman. He basically _flew_ over the gap separating the Chancellor's stand from everything else, and was about to plunge himself onto the balcony and deliver a single downwards lightsaber strike on Anakin, when something small and _fast_ jumped quickly and smashed against his side. Would have stabbed him with a lightsaber, too, had his precognitive reflexes not allowed him to sense and parry the strike just in time.

The small, fast thing turned out to be little Yoodie - who pulled down his hood and revealed himself as none other than Master Yoda.

"Fuck me, you wanted to," he said, coldly, pointing his lightsaber at the enemy. "And penetrate you, I now will."

Palpatine landed on a nearby stand after his tumble. "He's a Jedi!," he shouted. "Clones, shoot him!"

The Clones abandoned their debates, readying their guns.

"Not any more!," shouted Anakin, "I now make you a Sith with the name of Darth Yoodu!"

The Clones lowered the guns again. The debates restarted, even more lively. They were now at the stage of asking themselves, "what _is_ a Jedi, anyway?".

Darth Yoodu plunged himself against his enemy, spinning his lightsaber all around wildly, so fast that even to a trained eye it was hard to follow. Only letting his own precognition guide his hands saved Palpatine's head. Frustrated, he let out another ferocious scream, and while parrying blows with his right hand, he pushed out a left hand glowing with lightning. Struck by surprise, Yoodu was tossed tumbling into another stand, where he lay for a bit motionless.

Two more lightsabers engaged Palpatine. One one side, Anakin. On the other, having jumped from the Naboo senate stand...

"Obi-Wan!," snarled Palpatine. "Clones! Jedi!"

"Sith!," immediately corrected Anakin, "Darth Bore!"

"Seriously, Anakin?"

Darth Vader and Darth Bore kept hacking away at Palpatine. Under them, Darth Yoodu had recovered, and while still a bit dizzy, was obviously only seconds away from re-joining the fray. The Emperor realised against three enemies of that level his chances might not be all _too_ good after all. He decided to adopt one of the most honoured and powerful traditional Sith techniques: taking hostages.

"Move away, you idiots!," he shouted, and used the Force to push away his opponents, gaining some breathing room for another long jump. This time he managed to reach the balcony, where thirty-two elementary school children stared at him.

He looked back, with a devious grin.

 _Every single child_ made a determined face and pulled out a lightsaber.

"Fuck," muttered the Emperor, as he jumped again to avoid being sliced from so many directions he just couldn't parry them all, no matter what.

"Clones-!" he started, but of course, Anakin was already on it.

"Darth Brath #1 to #31!," he shouted, and then, focusing his stare on little Jeeves, who looked at him expectantly, he added, with a smile, "And he's Darth _Yaku_!"

Darth Yaku let out a little squeal of joy, then jumped behind the enemy with renewed enthusiasm. The most confident of the kids followed him, lightsabers ready and a war cry on their lips.

"FOR MASTER ANAKIN!"

The Senate turned into utter chaos. At least twenty between kids and adults were jumping back and forth among the stands, tossing around stuff with Force powers, and of course waving around their lightsabers. The entire room looked like a retro disco club on a neon-themed party night, except somewhat more deadly. Meanwhile, the Clones were engaged in their own discussions so deeply, they had found it more convenient to go congregate in adjacent stands to continue. Two factions had delineated, arguing vehemently about whether the Jedi-Sith binary was merely a social construct that needed to be torn down, and if it could really be said that obeying Order 66 was a sufficiently justified ethical guide to a good clone life.

But despite their enthusiasm, Anakin realised, many of the kids were really out of their depth. And even if originally he'd not discarded the option of letting Palpatine slaughter a few of them, now he'd actually kind of grown attached to them, damn his soft heart. Also, Padmé was watching, and letting children die was _not_ going to win him points with her.

"Darth Bore, Darth Yoodu!," he called, "We need to help the kids, they're in trouble!"

To be precise, a small group of four had been separated; among them was Liatha, the little Twi'lek girl that really couldn't turn down the call of duty when others were stepping up to it. Still, she was clearly not up to the level of skill of some of the others. Realising that, Palpatine was focusing on her. Anakin had no doubt he could have killed her in a single swoop, but obviously his plan was more devious than that. Had he killed her, sad as it might have been, the others would have had no reason to rush to her any more. If she was still alive but in trouble, instead, saving her meant inevitably exposing their flank to the enemy. But as for all the best traps, knowing that the trap was there didn't mean they could just stay away from it.

Anakin and Yoda both plunged on Palpatine, engaging his lightsaber so that he couldn't use it to strike at the girl, while Obi-Wan jumped to hug Liatha and drag her out of the way. 

"Oh, no, I'm locked in a clash with you two!," said the Emperor, mockingly. "How could I possibly go after that girl now!"

He made a gesture with his non-sword hand. His Force powers grabbed hold of another one of the kids, and like a marionette, he found himself sent against Obi-Wan and Liatha, all while he was screaming at them to get away. His movements were slow and clumsy, but on the other hand, Obi-Wan had to both protect Liatha and avoid hurting him. One lightsaber slash hit too close, and the master lost his sword - and his hand with it.

"DARTH BORE!," shouted Vader, more worried than he'd have liked to admit. But while he spoke, Yoodu didn't waste a fraction of a second before acting. He jumped again, narrowly dodging Palpatine's saber, and rushed to Obi-Wan, who now held a girl that was screaming in fright. A single, determined push with the Force disarmed the kid who had been controlled by the Emperor, and with another waving motion of his hand he freed him from those invisible threads. 

Palpatine sneered. "How nice. All the threats in a single spot."

He let go a massive blast of lightning towards them. It wouldn't have been hard to dodge for Yoda - but that would have meant leaving everyone else to be hit, including the kids, who would not survive. And so, he decided instead to parry. The powerful burst of Dark energy invested him, pushed against his lightsaber, and with incredible violence, exploded in a shockwave that smashed him against the floor of the stand he was on. The leaked energy was enough to rebound and hit everyone else. At the end of it, Yoda was passed out, while Obi-Wan, holding his mutilated wrist, was groaning in pain, and the two kids were just huddling around him, pained and terrified.

Anakin and Palpatine stood one in front of each other, the only two remaining standing fighters. Darth Vader and Darth Sidious.

"You said _all_ the threats," said Anakin. "Does that mean you don't consider me one?"

"Anakin, Anakin, Anakin," the other shook his head, smiling. "You know, I might _just_ consider taking you in again if you really apologise to me for this little tantrum. The Dark Side can go to your head. I thought you cared about saving Padmé?"

"You _lied_ to me! Padmé will be just fine, as long as I kill _you_."

"I'm afraid you might be a little too early for that," replied the old man, spiteful. "Know your place, _apprentice_."

"Master Skywalker!"

A little blonde boy ran up to the man, lightsaber still in hand. Palpatine observed the scene with slight amusement.

"Jeeves, stay out of this," replied the Sith. "He's mine. You can't fight him yet."

"I did pretty well earlier. Ask him!," said the kid. Palpatine raised his poorly identifiable eyebrows, then muttered something about beginner's luck.

"Jeeves-"

"Personal army, remember, Master? You said we should be ready to die."

The absolutely, stone-cold determined stare in the boy's eyes, underlined by a genuinely childish smile, left Anakin stunned. Was that how he'd looked when he had won the Boonta Eve Classic for Qui-Gonn's sake? Or piloted a Naboo fighter inside a Federation Droid Control ship and blew it up? Well, he wasn't exactly the best person to tell a child to avoid getting into war scenarios, he guessed.

"All right," he decided. "But first, just in case - I need to tell you something."

Jeeves nodded, adoring. "What is it?"

"It's, well... your mother didn't tell you what happened to your father?"

"She told me enough," he replied, a bit confused. "That he was a cute guy. A bit dumb, though."

Anakin swallowed heavily at that. "No," he said, taking a deep breath. " _I_ am your father."

The boy didn't immediately answer to that, looking at him with transfixed eyes. "That's _so cool_ ," he finally managed to whisper.

"Yeah. Now let's kick his ass."

And they jumped forward together, slashing and hacking and spinning like a single Jedi - or Sith - with four arms and two lightsabers. Their natural instincts clicked together perfectly, their reflexes fast as Force-granted reflexes could be, their connection to the future and each other as strong as the one that the best masters had ever experienced. Palpatine defended himself barely, struggling at each blow, parrying and dodging and being slowly pushed back. He tried firing off some lightning, but Anakin deflected it, and then from under his arm jumped Jeeves, slashing with his own saber in a way that forced Palpatine to break contact or he would have lost his head. Throughout the fight, Anakin could swear, Jeeves was getting _better_. Having never been pushed to this kind of extent by a do-or-die situation, his Force powers were only getting keener and heightened by the danger, reaching their natural peak. The powers that he had inherited from the Chosen One, the single being born with the highest midichlorian count ever recorded. Anakin had always wondered what could he have become by now had he been trained in the Jedi ways from the kind of age most kids were, and now he could see it, clear as day. A tiny, blonde, gleeful, giggling, absolutely unstoppable killing machine. He was, frankly, a little envious.

"Aaaargh!," screamed Palpatine, keeling over. Just like Obi Wan before, his sword hand had been cleanly chopped off by Jeeves' swings, after he'd been forced to guard one of Anakin's. It was a very common way for duels to end - common enough that "give me a hand" had fallen entirely of fashion as an idiom among the Jedi, due to the sort of morbid practical jokes it tended to elicit. Either way, it was over. The Emperor was defeated. Now it was just a matter of cleaning up.

Anakin walked towards him, lightsaber ready, meaning to do just that.

"Have meeercy," whined the defeated Sith, with a disgustingly false pleading expression. "I'm just a poor old maaan!"

Jeeves stopped. He looked taken aback.

"Don't fall for it, Jeeves," said Anakin. "I've seen him pull that once already."

"But he's all beaten up," replied the boy, hesitating. He turned to Anakin. "What can he-"

The answer came immediately in the form of Palpatine jumping back to his feet, wrapping his mutilated arm around Jeeves' neck, pulling him to his body, and pointing his other hand straight at the boy's head. His fingers started crackling with Dark lightning.

Anakin growled in frustration, and extended his lightsaber. "Let him go."

"So what? So you can kill me without any worries and then go on to take my place? I think not! I'll teach you to think you can get all cocky with your betters."

"Are those the words of someone who's just been beaten by a seven years old?"

Palpatine spat with disgust. "You and your damned prophecy, it's like a freaking cheat. Even your spawn has ridiculous powers! Not that they mean all that much, look how you managed to waste _yours_. I had to earn my skill, I'll let you know! Worked my ass hard for decades, learning the Sith ways!"

"What can I say, I'm lucky that way," replied the young man, sarcastic. "What can you even do? Where can you flee? You're _done_ , Palpatine. Just give up, and at least die with some dignity."

"What I'll do is my own business. Now drop your lightsaber, or this promising young Sith gets his brain fried."

Jeeves looked at Anakin with determination. Poor little kid was clearly terrified, and still, Anakin saw, he managed to pull something like a stiff upper lip, and stoic eyes that seemed to say, _don't care about me, just do it._

And of course, Anakin couldn't.

His lightsaber clanged on the floor.

"Mwahahaha!," Palpatine's laugh was as disgusting as his face. "An idiot through and through. You always wondered why the Council wouldn't acknowledge you, Skywalker. Well, since all pretence is dropped, let me answer that."

He tightened his grip on Jeeves, who started choking. His fingers caressed the little boy's head; the blonde hair started standing on its end, electrified by the nearby static crackling.

"It's because you're a shit Jedi," hissed the monster. "You always were. _Ohh, I love my mommy! Ohh, I love Padmé! Ohh, I love my son!_ At each and every turn, every one of your stupid mistakes was because you couldn't keep your feelings in check. Jedi are supposed to be at peace. And you never were. You always let yourself be manipulated so easily, it was almost _boring_. At least normal Jedi were something of a challenge. With you, all I had to do was push that little button that said 'LOVE' and suddenly, everything you did would go exactly _my_ way! That's why they never made you a Jedi Master - because _you never were worthy to be one_ , you stupid brat!"

"But I am not a Jedi," said Anakin, in a sudden moment of realisation. "I am a Sith."

Something stirred inside him. It was like a lot of pieces that had been strewn through his whole life suddenly clicked together, forming the full picture of a puzzle that was obscure at first, but now clear as day. The love and the selfishness, the peace and the passion. His love for his mother, for his wife, for his sons, either born or not, and yes, a tiny teeny bit, even for his master Obi-Wan, he had to admit. Every opposite truth that was part of the two halves of the Force revealing itself as really just the side of a multi-faceted, multidimensional coin that spanned... everything. Just everything. The fullness of the energy that flowed through the entirety of that messy, contradictory thing we call life. The Force, finally in balance, within him, the Chosen One.

He felt an immense surge of power.

"Through passion," he said, his eyes lighting up with a reddish gleam, "I gain strength."

He took those feelings, shaped them, made them a physical reality, as the Force gave them substance. He only had to point a finger. The energy of lightning focused on its tip, the telekinetic forces shaped and moved every molecule in the air into a precise confining whirlpool, stripping the very electrons from their atoms. A single, thin, perfect, bright red plasma lance, like the blade of a very long lightsaber, extended with a piercing shriek for an instant, then vanished.

At the end of it, Palpatine stood still, holding Jeeves, who was unharmed.

In the old Sith's chest was a small, perfectly round hole passing him side to side, through his lungs and heart, cauterised by the heat, and still smoking.

"Absoluter... power...?," mumbled the man, and then he spat a mouthful of blood and tumbled to the ground, dead, his eyes fixed in the incredulous stare he'd had in the last moments of his life.

Jeeves freed himself from the now dead arm and ran to Anakin, hugging him tight without saying a word. Anakin just patted his head.

"And that solves that. Great fight there, soldier," he said. "Let's go tell everyone else the good news."

* * *

To date, what followed was the longest occurrence of a standing ovation in the Senate of the Republic ever recorded. The entire Senate clapped and cheered at the sight of the man who had defeated the budding Emperor and restored order to the Galaxy for almost twenty-five minutes straight, without pause. The feelings all across the board would come from different places - many were relieved that they had avoided the Republic turning into an Empire, others were grateful that they had dodged the horrible fate of having a degenerate as Emperor, and most were really glad that they wouldn't lose their very remunerative job. But all were happy, and even when at times the clapping would die down a bit, Anakin would raise his fist in the air or shout something rousing and heroic and then it would renew for a while.

Of course, not everything was solved. In fact things were pretty much as bad as they'd been just before anyone discovered that the Chancellor was really a Sith, with the years long Clone Wars still infuriating without any end in sight. And now, in addition to that, the Jedi had almost all been killed, and the Jedi Temple, with all its precious knowledge, was reduced to rubble. But still, what had just transpired felt like an important victory. Compared to what they'd just averted, everything else seemed trivial. A solution for it all would be found, in time.

"So, what did you guys think? Guess not everyone's good enough to defeat the Dark Lord of the Sith, huh?," said Anakin first thing, after having recovered Obi-Wan and Yoda, and brought them to the same stand where Padmé was to recover.

"Could have done it sooner," said Obi-Wan, clutching his wrist.

"Oh, don't be a wuss. You're getting a prosthetic for that one. Trust me, they're not all that bad."

"Not too shabby, you were," begrudgingly admitted Yoda. "But Dark Side powers, you used. Out of the Jedi Order, I must kick you."

His stare darkened. "Not much anymore, that means," he added.

"Ehh, Dark Side, Light Side, I'm above and beyond that now," replied Anakin, smugly. "I'm the Chosen One, remember."

"I'm sure you will never let _anyone_ forget it," said Padmé, tugging at his arm and huddling against him. "Oh, wait, you never did even before this."

The young man mumbled. "You know, I was thinking of you. I mean, also of you. It was complicated. And how much I love - you know what I mean. When I fired that beam and killed the Emperor and stuff."

"That is _so_ romantic. Every woman dreams to be the one who inspires her man to develop new creative ways of murdering his enemies," she said. Then, pulling him closer. "You did earn yourself this."

And she stamped a very public and long kiss on the lips. Obi-Wan whistled, Yoda averted his eyes and grumbled about young people and hormones, and all the kids that were gathered around them started cheering. Leevera and Pundia, in particular, felt extremely vindicated.

They all jumped a bit when suddenly, a Clone Commander showed up to the same stand. However, he did not seem to show any signs of wanting to attack.

"Darth Vader, sir," he said, clacking his heels and saluting Anakin. "As per directives, you being the highest ranking Sith, we now await for your orders."

"Ah, uhm," the young man scratched his head. "I guess you could continue as you were? Just stop killing the Jedi. That's not necessary any more."

"We have agreed that much already," said the Commander. "In fact, through long and continued debate, we are now questioning the nature of our very existence. Having been bred into the world to merely serve as soldiers, it seems to us, is too limited a purpose for life. Surely, there must be some greater truth to the world. Some of us believe that the spirit of the Clone Father, Jango Fett, guides us and inspires us, and his unfathomable designs are what we should really work towards accomplishing. What is your opinion on that, sir?"

Everyone did a double take. "Sure," said Anakin, slowly. "But there will be time to discuss that more in depth later. It's a complicated topic."

The clone saluted again and left, as stiff as he had come.

"Now," said Padmé, "it would be best if we go to the hospital."

"Oh, don't worry," replied Anakin, with nonchalance. "I haven't gotten any serious wounds, just scratches. And Obi-Wan's a grown up man, so-"

"That's not what I meant," she continued. "With all the emotions and chaos of this last hour, I think my body might have... you know?"

She pointed at her belly. Then she was taken by sudden pain, and her expression changed, her face draining of colour entirely. She screamed and bent over in two.

"Oh my Force! Ok, I've - I've tried to read up on - look, there was no time - ok, just, breathe, right? I think that's it! Just-"

"JUST LIFT ME WITH YOUR FORCE THINGY AND CARRY ME TO AN HOSPITAL YOU MORON! ARGH! IT HURTS SO MUCH-"

"Ok, ok! Master Yoda, could you please try to-"

"Do. Or do not. There is no try."

"Well, then DO IT!"

And so the heroes left the Senate, still surrounded by applause and cheers, levitating a pregnant woman about to deliver to a nearby hospital. Behind them followed a gaggle of children, former pupils of the Jedi order, among which one Jeeves Skywalker who, together with his half-brother and half-sister about to be born, would in time become a legend of his own within the new mixed Jedi-Sith order. But all of that was in the future; right then and there, all that mattered was that the Republic had just narrowly avoided the gravest crisis it had ever faced. Forgotten in a corner of the Senate lie the lifeless body of that greatest of threats, one Sheev Palpatine, who would remain there until the cleaners came to take out the trash. That such a violent battle within the Senate had resulted in no victims except for its culprit was nothing short of a miracle, and one that only compounded the relief felt at the moment.

However, that is not entirely exact. One small accident did mar the otherwise happy record of that day. It had happened during the extended cheering and clapping, right before Anakin and the others left the halls. Despite not being usually the kind to appreciate noises or excitement of any kind, in this occasion, Senator Eertie had joined in. Such had been the pure horror and sense of betrayal he had felt at the sight of the Chancellor doing those _things_ with that low brow _woman_ , that he could now hardly contain his enthusiasm at his defeat and yes, even death. Because he could not deserve anything less! Uncharacteristically, he let himself be carried away by the enthusiasm. He clapped, he hooted, he shouted. In order to make himself more heard, he even climbed at the very edge of his own senatorial stand, right above the precipice, screaming an almost primal scream into the air. For once in his life, he felt something resembling a rush of adrenaline.

Under him, Senator Derou was not displaying his enthusiasm with anything more than a clap, but his clap was nothing to be sneezed at. As a Kugnorian, his hands were heavy like hammers, and every time they slammed together, it was like someone was hitting a rock wall with a battering ram. The impact was so powerful, it produced regular vibrations that shook his and the nearby stands. THUMP, THUMP, THUMP.

Senator Eertie ignored that. He was too absorbed in his own ecstatic joy to notice. But that was a mistake, because as he peered right at the edge of his own stand, the vibrations did not stop; in fact, they resonated with the whole stand, sending it into a series of oscillations of increasing amplitude. THUMP, THUMP, THUMP.

When Lieb noticed, he tried to step back, but it was too late. His foot missed a step due to the oscillations. He slipped. And his whole body tumbled down from the stand, right onto the stand below, where Thun was still clapping, with those massive, giant hands, as heavy and powerful as jackhammers, as large as a normal man's whole body.

THUMP, THUMP.

The last thing Senator Eertie saw were the large, red palms rapidly closing in towards him, just as they slammed close for one more clap.

THUMP.

And so, in the end, due to this stupid, avoidable accident, the day was not entirely victimless. Instead, this was how Lieb Eertie died: with Thun Derou's applause.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap - I did promise a truly terrible pun, you can't complain! As you can see there's lots of possibilities to this what-if scenario going forward, and I've considered that it might be fun to write a sequel - possibly staying more on the fluffy side. I enjoy a lot both the chemistry between these versions of Anakin and Padmé, and the idea of writing him as a dad. I'll think about it, but it's not in the immediate future, that's for sure. Thanks to all who have read and liked, please leave a review if you enjoyed the story to let me know what you thought!


End file.
